bothner@Navajo.ARPA (08/24/85)
In article <290@sdcc13.UUCP> ps101@sdcc13.UUCP (ps101) writes: >Faggot--slang for logs put on fires> refered >to gays because gays were burned as witches in 16-17th century. In article <709@ttidcc.UUCP> hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath) writes: >A minor quibble -- My understanding is that the term faggot, as slang for >homosexual, arose because homosexuals were used as fuel to burn witches. Well, that is one derivation. But note that in Britain "fag" is commonly used to mean cigarette (originally seen as effeminate), as well as a lower-class student in a "public" school who had to do menial tasks for an upper-class student (I don't think the system is common now, but I read lot of boarding school novels (a very popular children's genre at least then) where the custom existed. One or both of these could well have led to the current meaning of "homosexual". My copy of "The American Heritage Dictionary" here at work lists "origin unknown" for "fag[got]" as meaning "A male homosexual". The derivation from "burning or being burned as witches" seems like folk etymology again. ["homosexuals were used as fuel to burn witches" is course totally ridiculous - even in the darkest Dark Ages no one was that dumb!] But I guess some people find this latter derivation more useful to build up miltancy and separatism... --Per Bothner Bothner@su-score.ARPA UUCP: ...!{decwrl,ucbvax}!glacier!navajo!bothner